


it's like everything is telling me

by regrettably



Category: Khiphop, Show Me the Money (Korea TV)
Genre: M/M, even more bullshit than usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:07:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22081546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regrettably/pseuds/regrettably
Summary: Nicholas and Jinyong make it their year.
Relationships: Lee Jinyong | Loopy/Choi Nicholas | nafla
Comments: 26
Kudos: 82





	it's like everything is telling me

**Author's Note:**

> new year, same shitty writing
> 
> jokes
> 
> it's even shittier

_“It’s so cowardly of you to be happy alone.”_

_\- nafla, 슬픈 노래만 들어_

The first hours of the new year are spent in Times Square.

Not the iconic crossroads in Manhattan, but the steel and concrete monolith that dominates the crumbling brick of Yeongdeungpo.

A New Year’s gig is a good idea, an auspicious start. It fits well with the plans for the rest of the year. Would’ve been cool if they were the midnight slot, but, really, it’s even better that they’re later. Saved the best for last. 

They just about miss the countdown while they’re being shuffled down the makeshift corridors behind the stage in the middle of the mall, but Jinyong remembers at the last second and pulls up a live stream from the side of the Han Gang.

“Happy new year, Choi Nicholas,” He drawls right as the clock ticks over and the fireworks go up, all teeth while he slides his fingers along Nicholas’s. A handshake. Their handshake. “This one, this one’s gonna be ours.”

It catches him for a second, Nick, Nick, Nicholas, after months of being ‘Fla, Nafla, _Show Me the Money Triple Seven’s_ Winner Nafla. Then the MC is bellowing out their names and he nods.

“Fuckin’ right it is.” Jinyong’s palms feel damp against his own, and they’re out in front of the lights and the screams and the cameras and for one set, five songs three minutes each, he’s Nafla and Jinyong’s Loopy and everything is the way it should be.

The sun is rising by the time they’re on their way back home. Jinyong’s glued to his phone in the van, fingers hovering over the screen. One of their managers reminds them they have to film some sort of message for the end of their newest vlog.

Jinyong smiles, tapping out a reply. “You do it this time, I did the last one.” 

“Shit, Hyung.” Jinyong’s always the one with the big thoughts, big ideas. “What should I say?”

“Uh… I read something today, by, like, an old American guy… he said we don’t change just because time does, we change because we decide to, y’know? How ‘bout something like that?”

“Who said that?”

“Dunno, think he was a writer or something,” Jinyong pauses, “Or maybe it was Dr. Phil?”

“Really? Fuck, whatever, uh… how ‘bout… there’s no need to make resolutions just because it’s a new year?” The van bounces over the uneven Yeongdeungpo streets. It’s no joke trying to make eye contact with the camera in his manager’s hands. “It’s better to change for real, when you really feel you should.”

He’s satisfied with that. Came across smarter than he thought it would. He adds a couple quick words about their plans for the year, the album, the upcoming tour of America, before he collapses back into his seat. He scrunches his eyes shut. They burn red under his eyelids.

“And do you, ‘Fla?” Jinyong asks, off camera, not looking up from his phone. “There anything you feel like you should change?”

It hurts too much to keep his eyes closed. He turns his head just enough so he can watch early morning Seoul flash past. It looks the same as last year. For every row of shining new windows there’s a dark building with a peeling sign advertising vegetables or auto parts.

He thinks of the pile of recycling stacked in the entrance of his apartment. Missed calls from his mom. Sweaty palms. The burnt out light in the studio bathroom.

“Nah. Only thing I’m changing this year is how much money we makin’.”

“Fuckin’ cheers to that.” Jinyong bumps a lukewarm bottle of Chilsung Cider against his shoulder and Nicholas laughs and sits on his hands until he can’t feel them anymore.

  
  
  


“So, Loopy-ssi, what do you think is Nafla’s best trait? And his worst one?”

Jeon Somin flashes them an expectant smile and Jinyong gives him this long look from under the brim of his hat, licks his lips.

“Well, ‘Fla, he’s always so prepared, always has a plan for everything.” Nicholas gives Jinyong a big wicked grin. He knows what comes next. “But that, uh… preparedness can be kind of a bad thing too.”

Nucksal-hyung chimes in here. “Ah, like it’s a blessing and a curse?”

He’s grateful for Nucksal agreeing to be here. It’s not just about his shit-ton of experience on Korean broadcasts. He’s funny, quick on his feet, always has something to keep the conversation going.

They aren’t like that. They’re used to only being asked about their opinions on hip-hop. And Nicholas can do that. He could give a lecture on Gaeko’s influence in Korea in a heartbeat, riff for hours on Biggie’s themes, dissect each track on _Straight Outta Compton_ off the top of his head.

But he’s not good with questions about himself. Questions about Nicholas when they should be about Nafla.

“Exactly. Like, working with ‘Fla can be sorta stressful at times? He’s so prepared you feel like there’s a lot of pressure.”

Nicholas shoves him, Jinyong laughs. No harm done. It’s the same answer he always gives lately. And Nicholas knows that really, he doesn’t mind. He’s said it was one of the first things he liked about Nicholas; how he always had a plan with his music. Even back then, as an angry punk kid with a dumb haircut and red Air Jordans and the kind of rhymes only teenagers think are sick.

They’ve learned the teasing is good for the camera. And he gets a chance for a verbal hit back when Jeon Somin asks him if there’s anything he’d like to change about Jinyong.

“Maybe how spontaneous he is?”

“Loopy-ssi is spontaneous and you like to plan everything out? So, together you’re basically one normal person?” Nucksal laughs, “It’s good you do everything together then.”  
  


“We don’t, y’know? If we did, we’d probably hate each other by now,” Jinyong gives the studio camera a knowing smile, “But it’s why we work so well together. We balance each other out.”

Jinyong says it again, sucking on a ciggy outside the Yeouido studio. The sun reflects off the mirrored buildings right into Nicholas’s eyes. He has to squint to look at Jinyong.

“F’real, I mean it. You do keep me balanced.”

Nicholas focuses on the cigarette dangling between Jinyong’s fingers. Runs his tongue over his teeth. 

“Whatcha being so nice for, Hyung? ‘S’not still about the car, is it?”

“Nah, it’s not about the car.” Jinyong grins, taking a long drag and letting it out real slow. “You’re just good to work with, ‘s’all.”

“Yeah? Well, you ain’t bad to work with either. Sometimes you make me a little loopy, but still.”

Jinyong laughs, almost drops his smoke. “A little loopy? That’s funny.”

Nicholas wants to laugh until his lips crack. He settles for bumming a cig off Jinyong to keep his mouth busy and together they blow smoke up between the broadcasting towers of Yeouido. 

  
  
  


Seattle is cold. Wet. Covered in fog so thick it makes Nicholas think maybe he never got off the plane and he’s still sleeping, trapped in some sort of horror movie-esque nightmare. It adds a whole other layer of shitty to the pre-tour nerves and the jetlag pounding at his brain, thumping away that it’s time to sleep, time to sleep.

The only good things at this point are American food and Jinyong’s mood.

“Y’know how they always say America is, like, the land of opportunities? Well, this shit is totally what they meant.”

Jinyong shakes a container in Nicholas’s face.

“Yeah? They meant eating fish sandwiches?”

“Uh, yeah? They meant eating bomb-ass fish sandwiches like this!” Jinyong takes a huge bite, grins and chews at the same time. “But, for real. I mean, like, I’m in Seattle. Eating dope food. With you.”

“Hyung.” Nicholas pulls a face, thankful he gave the hairspray a rest today so Jinyong can’t see how the tips of his ears start to turn red, but Jinyong keeps going, sandwich balanced between his fingers. 

“‘Member when we used to look for loose change just to buy a fuckin’ cheeseburger?”

Nicholas thinks of digging down between the seats in his old Sunfire, paying for Taco Bell with nickels in the drive-thru at four in the morning. Jinyong going on about how good things are going to be for them some day while _Me Against the World_ bumped on the six CD changer.

“Yeah, I ‘member.” Nicholas mumbles through a mouthful of fish and bread. “Shit was whack.”

“And it ain’t anymore. We’re on the up, Nick. On. The. Up.” He emphasises each word with a fry jabbed in Nicholas’s direction.

“Yeah, man. On the up.”

Sharing food, just the two of them, stateside. The rain’s pelting the restaurant window and the tabletop feels a little sticky and it kind of seems like his eyes might fall out of his head if he doesn’t get to sleep soon. He thinks about eating dollar tacos in the front seat, ‘Pac saying he got nothing to lose while Jinyong tells him how this is just the start. How since he’s got Nicholas now, they’ve got to be going places. Nicholas finishes his sandwich and lets Jinyong have the rest of his fries.

  
  
  


“Oh, this! I think a lot of women will be curious about this one!” Nicholas grips the card tight, shoots Jinyong an evil grin, “Hyung’s ideal type?”

This kind of interview is even worse than the usual. It’s one of those ones where viewers send in questions that they have to ask each other on camera. They always start off innocent enough, but in the end, it’s always. Always. Always.

“Uhm…” Jinyong laughs to himself, spins on his stool. Nicholas looks him right in the face, all ears. “I think someone who lives a healthy life? Like, a healthy lifestyle is sexy.” 

Nicholas thinks of the tylenol he washed down with a can of Coke before heading to this schedule. The breakfast of chicken nuggets they had in the car. The half pack they smoked at the back entrance to this studio.

“And somebody wise. Not just being smart, but being wise? I think that’s real sexy too.”

Nicholas thinks of how he got himself locked out of the studio a few weeks back. The day drinking. The passive aggressive social media posts.

“Your turn.” Jinyong grabs the card from him. “‘Kay, Nafla’s first love?”

“What’s with these questions?” Nicholas laughs. He avoids looking at the camera. “Hyung keeps asking all these questions about day and night and love and stuff…”

Jinyong shrugs, a smile hovering on his lips. “I don’t ask these things normally. So I figured I’d ask them today.”

He forces his eyes from the ground to Jinyong. Focuses on the Fendi vest over the white hoodie. The Nikes so new they’ve still got that fresh out the box smell. Jinyong biting his bottom lip while he thinks.

“Don’t think I’ve ever had a first love.”

Jinyong raises an eyebrow. “Really? Not even a one-sided love? One-sided is an okay answer too.”

Nicholas’s leg is shaking. He knows it, toes tapping off the ground. Up down, up down. Down, down, down. A real lame beat. He hopes the camera only captures from the waist up. 

“No, I think that if I had that, I’d feel sad whenever I knew those loves weren’t ever going to work out? But I’ve never felt sad like that?” Nicholas screws up his face, disappointed for the recording, “Guess I haven’t had my first love yet.”

The questions shift: fashion, food, talents. But Jinyong brings it back up again in the car, shaking a paper bag of deep-fried cheese sticks at him. 

“You really never had a first love, Nick? Not even, like, some girl in high school? The popular chick you always wished you could get with but she had some huge boyfriend on the football team or something?”

Jinyong’s knowledge of the typical American teenager comes from movies and drunken stories only. Nicholas accepts a coke, takes a long sip before answering. 

“Nah, never. Not like that, anyways.” He kicks himself in his head for tagging on that last bit, but Jinyong doesn’t seem to notice, busy with passing the food around.

“Y’know, think it was Snoop Dogg who said that everyone should experience love… that it’s like, something everyone has to feel to understand, and once you feel it, you’ll get it?”

Nicholas takes a cheese stick, watches the grease drip down his fingertips. “Bet he wasn’t worrying about money like us when he said that shit.”

Jinyong laughs, pops a stick in his mouth. “Probably fuckin’ not.”

Nicholas spends the rest of the ride sucking grease from his fingers and not watching Jinyong do the same.

  
  
  


They blast through LA so fast he has to call his mom and promise that even though he can’t make it this time, he’ll visit at the end of the tour. Then it’s a day here, a day there, ripping through cities that all look kind of familiar and kind of not until they’re standing in the middle of the biggest city in all of the States, holding pizza and soaking up that whole empire state of mind Jay-Z was rapping about.

“Fuck, I love this place.” Jinyong says between bites of pizza that steam into the New York night.

Nicholas loves it too. It’s like everything he’s ever seen smashed up together. He sees the kid from the Christmas films foiling robbers while darting through the landmarks, Spiderman bounding from building to building on his webs, John Travolta swinging the paint can down the street. Bill Murray chasing ghosts while RZA and GZA smoke darts by graffiti-tagged storefronts. 

“Yeah. Me too.” 

Nicholas is looking up at the signs, the lights, letting the heat from the pizza transfer to his fingers. Jinyong’s staring out at the crowd passing by, tugging up the collar of his North Face as high as it can go while still letting him eat.

“Nick, y’know what I always think of when we come here?” He stamps his feet to keep warm, pauses. “Think I never told you this before.”

Nicholas goes to chew a mouthful of pizza and has to wipe the steam off his glasses first. 

“Y’know how back in Korea, like, everyone’s kind of doing the same thing? Seems like there are only so many kinds of people and they all like the same stuff and it’s not what you’re into and y’always feel like, shit, how am I ever gonna find my kind of people? And here…” Jinyong motions at the people making their way up the sidewalk. Business people swishing by in trenchcoats, young guys droning into their bluetooths, tall women chattering in every language Nicholas has ever heard before and some he hasn’t. “...here, when I first came to the States, it felt like… shit, there’s like every kind of person ever here? How’m I gonna find my kind of people when there’s so much of everything?”

He stops here, does a short laugh and shakes his head. Nicholas presses a piece of pepperoni against the roof of his mouth. “Yeah?”

“Dunno, guess it makes me feel lucky that I found you? Like, the chances of finding your kind of people here…?”

The pepperoni’s scalding hot. Nicholas grimaces as it burns his tongue.

“Think you’ve been listening to too much sappy shit, Hyung.” 

Jinyong chews on the crust of his pizza real slow, eyes following a guy in Blunds and a Supreme puffer bobbing his head along to something in his Beats. “Maybe. Think it’s like the song says…? You do kinda feel like you can do anything here.”

Nicholas licks a spot of sauce from his thumb. “Feel like you can blow some cash? There’s a Gucci place up the block…”

“Fuck we waitin’ for?” Jinyong grins, giving Nicholas a shove in the right direction. 

They weave around dark figures clutching Starbucks, stop for a smoke outside a theatre and scope out the posters for shows, walk past cops trying to make sense of a fender bender turned road rage incident. Nicholas catches their reflection in a dark store window, hoods pulled over their hats. Bomber jackets and piercings. Jeans and flannels. Jinyong taking a hand from his pocket to grab Nicholas’s sleeve and point out a pair of sneakers in a display. Nicholas feels so lucky it churns at the bottom of his stomach with the pizza.

  
  
  


He’s in his Sunfire. He’s in the backseat of his Sunfire. He’s in the backseat of his Sunfire, flushed and mouth breathing and his jeans are so tight but instead of the girl from the beauty salon next to the barbeque place he always went to in K-town it’s someone else. Someone with skinny arms and tobacco-stained fingers and who tastes like nicotine and sprite and meat and who only stops kissing him to skip to the next disk in the player because they love A Tribe Called Quest just as much as he does and they’re fumbling with the zipper on his jeans and they’re snaking their hand down his boxers and they’re-

Nicholas’s phone vibrates next to his head and he shoots straight up in bed so fast he blacks out for a second. He’s cold and sweating and his hands shake when he grabs his phone and squints at the screen.

It’s just two words. _U up?_ Nicholas sends a simple _yeah_ back, peels off his shirt and swaps it for a clean one. His hair’s faded to pink, a cotton candy looking disaster. He pushes it all back and is wiping the shine from his forehead with a towel when there’s a knock at his door. He lets Jinyong in.

Jinyong’s in plaid pants and hotel slippers and a big sweatshirt. He’s holding a six pack of coke in one hand and his phone in the other. The skin under his eyes is purple-grey.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Nicholas asks, opening cupboards, looking for the room’s kettle.

“Nah.” Jinyong shakes his head, sits cross-legged on a corner of the bed. “You?”

He finds the kettle, replies from the bathroom. “Not really.”

He trades a steaming cup of jin ramyeon for a coke and Jinyong’s smile looks just as warm as the noodles. 

Nicholas sits on the opposite side of the bed, hopes he doesn’t splash red broth all over the white hotel comforter. Warm food is good here. Toronto is cold. That’s all there is to say about it. They thought another country would be more interesting, but as far as they’ve seen Canada’s just got more cheap coffee and donuts and the weather is shittier and the ingredients on the back of a chocolate bar are printed in French too.

“I was just watching-” Jinyong pokes at his noodles with wooden chopsticks brought all the way from a K-Town convenience store, “-watching this thing on Muhammed Ali.”

Jinyong jumps back and forth between Korean and English. Half-words and mixed up slang, almost like they’ve got their own language. It feels easy, comfortable to be talking this way, not having to worry about anyone else trying to keep up. 

“He said, pretty much, that you’ve gotta live happily first. Like, everything else can come later. Worrying about music, work, style? Later. First you’ve got to be living happily.” 

Nicholas nods, shovelling clumps of ramyeon into his mouth.

“D’you feel like you’re living happily, Nicky?”

Nicky. He chokes, swallows hard.

“Right now?” He watches Jinyong cradling his cup in his hands, “Yeah, I think so. Are you?”

“Yeah… yeah. Yeah. It’s just sometimes I…” Jinyong stops, gnaws on the tips of his chopsticks. Nicholas waits. Jinyong’s like this sometimes. Too many ideas. “This, this has been real cool, Nick. This tour, I mean. Like, I don’t like how we gotta be here one day and then there another day and all the schedules and shit, but… Dunno, it’s kinda sweet just being the two of us again.”

Nicholas laughs into his noodles. “You saying you like hanging with me more than Owen and Hyunwoong an’ all them?”

“Yeah, that’s it.” Jinyong grins, pokes Nicholas in the leg with his foot. “Like they… I love them, like brothers, y’feel? But… I dunno, they can be real fuckin’ stupid sometimes.”

“An’ I can’t?”

Jinyong shakes his head. He chews his bottom lip and it turns his smile crooked. “Nah, not like that.”

Nicholas slurps up the last of his broth, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand.

“Y’tired yet, Hyung?”

“Not really.”

So he leans off the bed, reaches for his laptop on the floor. “Wanna listen to some beats I been working on, then?”

Jinyong shuffles closer, until they’re just about shoulder to shoulder. Tilts the screen to an angle he can see at. Nicholas taps on the first file and Jinyong’s bobbing his head and listening, smacking him on the thigh whenever he hears something he really likes. Nicholas thinks of how similar this is to how they made their first demos together. Huddled together on Jinyong’s narrow bed in his cramped LA place, laptops and midis and cheap mixing consoles all across the mattress. Nicholas thinks of being happy there.

  
  
  


“This is fuckin’ unreal, Nick.” 

They’re in LA to work, for the most part. They got their album done and dusted, easy. They’ve been thinking of doing an album together for a long time and there’s no better time than now, riding off the Show Me the Money publicity. Nicholas knew what he wanted as soon as they got in the studio and Jinyong came up with enough good ideas on the spot to get rid of the mechanical feel of overplanning and between the two of them it’s wrapped in a week. 

They’re also here to celebrate a tour well done. Nicholas has seen his mom, Jinyong’s hung with his old friends. And fuck it, they’re here at the NBA All-Stars game because they can do things like this now too. They deserve it.

“Just fuckin’ unreal.” Jinyong near bounces in his seat, transferring his sprite from one hand and back to the other, vibing to the pregame music, scanning all the different faces in the crowd below. 

“Fuck yeah.” Nicholas nods, the satisfaction of being able to get his own tickets to an NBA game almost as good as the satisfaction of just being here at all.

“‘Member last time we watched a game together?” Jinyong flips his phone camera, bares his teeth for a quick shot of them courtside. “At your mom’s?”

Nicholas’s smile slips just as the camera clicks. A bad selfie on his part.

“It was Chuseok and your mom invited me over so I wouldn’t have to be alone?” Jinyong laughs, studying the selfie. “And she made us a fuck-ton of food and she wouldn’t let me stop eating? Kept saying how skinny I was?”

Nicholas wishes he hadn’t worn so many layers. His sweatshirt feels real heavy all of a sudden.

“I stayed over and slept on your couch, and we watched a Lakers game and ate all those leftover songpyeon?”

Nicholas remembers. Sitting on the floor, stuffing themselves to the point of being sick with rice cakes and cold meat-stuffed jeon. The row of empties they lined up after his mom had gone to bed, taking a drink at every basket. Jinyong dressed up in nice pants and a collared shirt so his mom wouldn’t worry so much about the kind of people he was hanging out with. Jinyong’s collarbones sharp from the light of the TV after three beers and he’d unbuttoned his shirt down to right under his pecs. Jinyong grabbing his arm and shaking every time there was a sick play.

“Yeah. Seems crazy now.”

Jinyong laughs, perched on the edge of his chair, taking a video of the scoreboard flashing the pregame player stats. “You put on _Enter the Wu-Tang_ , ‘member? You rapped every single word, didn’t miss a single fuckin’ one. I thought it was the coolest shit ever.”

“Wasn’t that cool.”

Swaggering around his dated Pasadena living room between framed yearbook photos and portraits of his grandparents. Jinyong joining him on every chorus, strutting in time with the bass and bouncing a drink in his left hand.

“Nah, it was. Still remember how you nailed Inspectah Deck’s verse in ‘ _C.R.E.A.M.’_ . Gave me fuckin’ chills.”

Nicholas tugs hard at the neck of his sweatshirt.

Singing the chorus together, third quarter forgotten. Cash rules everything around me, get the money, clank two cans together, beer dribbling over the sides. Jinyong saying fuck, holy fuck, Nick, that was fuckin’ sweet, so fuckin’ sweet. Jinyong looking different without the hats and the piercings, long bits of his hair hanging over his forehead and spilling over the shaved sides and he was smiling so wide Nicholas could see every single one of his teeth and he had his hand on Nicholas’s arm and his face was so close and Nicholas wanted, he wanted, he wanted to lean in and, and-

“It was, like, the happiest moment of my life.” Jinyong says, staring down at the court.

Nicholas then had spilled his beer on the floor because it was easier.

Nicholas now freezes. He should ask. He should ask. He should ask why. It sticks in his throat, feels like a mouthful of his mom’s sannakji that’s got to be chewed a thousand times before he can swallow. “I… I- Hyung...” 

The lights are changing and the stadium’s sound system is kicked up to deafening. 

“Shit, Nick. It’s starting!” Jinyong shouts in his ear, pointing, pretty much as happy as Nicholas has ever seen him.

So he lets it go. Doesn’t ask.

Nicholas now still takes the easy way out.

  
  
  


The interviewer says soulmates.

It’s summer in Seoul, height of the humid season. Everything everywhere is hazy, soupy. Like walking through a bowl of doenjang jjigae whenever they go outside. 

They’ve been doing the festival circuit for their album promotions; squeezing in interviews and photoshoots when they get the chance. Nicholas likes the vibe. Likes swapping stories and cigarettes with other hip-hop artists behind the temporary stages. Wearing less clothes. Spraying water into the crowds. Not having to be alone with Jinyong so much. Afterparties on rooftops.

But it’s hot and he’s wearing pants and he’s just with Jinyong today and the interview’s in English and usually Jinyong’s good with that but now he’s being quiet and it’s all on Nicholas and the interviewer is saying they’re like soulmates. Perfect chemistry. Meant to be. Soulmates.

Nicholas thinks he might be losing his shit.

“We do practice, y’know?” He snaps. Feels bad as it spills out of his mouth. Tries to backtrack. “Like, I mean, we gotta practice this stuff? To make it seem like we’re in sync with each other. We actually practice a lot. We gotta see what works and what doesn’t before we do a performance…”

Jinyong’s fiddling with the piercing under his lip.

“And… and we don’t do everything together.” He picks his words slow, careful. “I think… I think, like, for our relationship…”

Relationship. Soulmates.

He pauses and Nicholas panics, says the first thing he can think of. “He doesn’t even come to the studio anymore! Most of the time he works from home!”

“That’s right.” Jinyong nods. “We, we do our own thing. Most of the time.”

The interviewer laughs, it all passes. Nicholas gives long answers to boring questions about fanmeetings and places he wants to tour.

The interview’s in Itaewon, on a weeknight. Jinyong says he wants something to drink so they stay behind, take their chances. Grab sodas from a convenience store perched on one of the neighbourhood’s steep hills. Lean on a railing, get that iconic Itaewon view. The jumble of flat-roofed buildings laced with streets of restaurants, foreign families dragging small children behind them, sketchy clothing stores advertising large sizes jammed in next to halal meat vendors and theme bars.

“Thanks for having my back there.” Jinyong nudges Nicholas with his elbow, dangling a can of cider over the rails in one hand, a smoke resting in the other. He doesn’t really drink anymore, not like they used to. Gets sick easy, blames it on old age. “I was having a real hard time talking.”

Nicholas has a coke. He wishes he had grabbed a beer instead. “Hey, no problem.”

“Nah, I dunno why that happens sometimes…” The sun’s going down, but it’s still disgusting hot. Jinyong looks comfortable in shorts and striped t-shirt, waning light casting sharp shadows under his jaw. “Sometimes it’s like I’ve got so much I wanna say that I don’t know where to start… I don’t know. Think it’s Bob Marley who says we can’t bury our thoughts, we gotta say what feel but… I just don’t know. Just… thanks.”

Itaewon looks nice like this, the dirty brick and broken pavement all summer night pinks and blues. Every once in a while the sinking sun reflects off a window and makes Jinyong’s nose ring shine. Nicholas sweats in his jeans, under his hat. Presses his coke to his forehead. 

“S’nothing, Hyung. You always been sticking up for me.”

“Yeah? Well…” Jinyong gives him a long stare, tip of his cig glowing red in his hands. “That’s ‘cause you’re the real deal. Know I’m sticking up for the best.”

He can’t even try to guess the number of times Jinyong’s called him his favourite rapper. The best out there. The real deal.

Perfect chemistry. Soulmates. Soulmates. Fuck. Soulmates.

“You alright there, Nick?” He’s leaning hard on the railing. Breathing weird. Wonders if he has heat stroke. Nobody going by in the streets looks like they’re struggling like him. Jinyong puts a hand on his shoulder, concerned, and Nicholas thinks that if he doesn’t stop touching him he might pass the fuck out. “I’ll buy you a beer, if that’ll help?”

Soulmates. Soulmates soulmates soulmates motherfuckin’ soulmates.

“Yeah, ‘m’good.” He takes off his hat, lets his hair spring out in faded yellow-pink clumps. “I’ll take the beer though.”

  
  
  


Coward.

He started rapping because he was angry. He was angry about going to class, angry at his teachers, angry at the life his parents had decided for him, angry about being short and having small eyes and a dumb face and looking nothing like anything any of the girls at school were into. 

Then he got good at it, and it was easier to rap about things that weren’t true. About cars and bling and girls and money and parties and anything that seemed like something Nafla was.

But he’s angry again. Been angry since they started doing everything together again.

Angry. Angry. Coward. Angry.

He’s got almost an album’s worth of anger that he’s been sitting on since the year started. He likes the beats. The beats are good, at odds with the words. Chill, late-night reflections. Nostalgic, longing, watching day change to night from the window of a Hapjeong cafe and wishing it could stay Sunday forever type beats. And he has to release something. 

It’s not hard to change the lyrics. Keep the flow the same but take the parts of his soul he’d ripped out and written down and piece them back together, lock them up tight under his ribcage and let them thump away there again. 

They mean almost nothing by the time he sends the finished tracks to Jinyong. Jinyong’s pretty much the boss, he’s got to sign off on everything. 

He sends them on the same morning that they’ve got a festival performance scheduled. It’s a big one, an autumn special, the kind of names that draw a huge crowd and sold out tickets. He hopes Jinyong doesn’t have the time to listen to them before they get there.

Jinyong doesn’t say anything about it at all in the van on the way there, doesn’t mention it during the soundcheck and dress rehearsals. Doesn’t even ask what happened to Nicholas’s hair. Why it’s grey-blue-black instead of the red.

It’s in the greenroom, changing into their stage clothes. They’ve got late slots, happy to be billed after the younger guys, so they’re sipping iced coffees and lacing up sneakers while staff and managers run in and out and the bass from the stage shakes the furniture.

“So, the new songs you sent me…” Jinyong is holding up different pieces of ice to his neck, Nicholas sucks his drink down the wrong part of his throat. “They’re really good.”

“Y-yeah?” Nicholas splutters, coughing. “They’re kinda shit. Like they sound good an’ all, but… they’re just saying dumb shit...”

“They’re good. Like, kinda different for you, but good.” Jinyoung decides five pieces is too many, settles for four. “They’re fuckin’ sad though.”

Nicholas goes for his iced coffee again, a careful swallow this time. “Nah, they ain’t really about anything. Fans love that kind of stupid sappy love shit, though.”

It is just stupid sappy love shit now. Why don’t you love me, I tried to forget you, what did I do wrong, why am I alone listening to sad songs, what changed between us, I’m nothing without you, how can you leave me like this. Complete fucking bullshit.

“I dunno…” Jinyoung styles his hair in the green room’s mirror, Nicholas never understands why he bothers when he only ever shows the shaved sides. “...some of the lines in them, like, the shit about needing to change, how things can’t keep going on like this? Or how… what was it? You’re a coward for being happy alone, or something. Like, man. Shit.”

“Means nothing, Hyung. Just the kind of shit people like to stream, ‘s’all.” 

Jinyong drags a chair over. Sits right next to him. Nicholas chews on his straw, rearranges his jersey.

“You didn’t show me any of these songs before. You always show me the songs you’re working on.” Jinyong just says it. His face is expressionless. He doesn’t sound like anything. He stirs the ice cubes in his coffee and waits for a response.

“Yeah. No.” The jersey is thick, shiny, sweaty. Nicholas picks at the hem. “Guess I was, like, embarrassed? ‘Cause it’s so sappy an’ shit.”

Jinyong takes a long sip. His ice rocks back and forth on his neck. A bead of sweat trickles down between Nicholas’s shoulders. “Okay.”

An assistant runs in to usher them towards the stage and it’s left like that. Jinyoung stands apart from him in the wings, chatting up one of the hairstylists from Sik-K’s entourage. Okay, Nicholas thinks. Okay. Okay. 

Okay, until they’re out on stage and people are screaming and shoving their phones in his face and blinding him with their DSLRs and he’s Nafla and he doesn’t have to think about anything at all anymore.

  
  
  


The wind that rips down the maze of Seoul’s streets is cold and damp and no matter how many layers of Adidas and Carhartt Nicholas huddles under he’s still freezing and miserable. The last of the yellow leaves rattle on the ginkgo boughs and the fallen ones litter the pavement in great soggy mounds. The bungeoppang carts are out and the hotteok ahjumma a few blocks from Nicholas’s place draws a crowd every evening.

Everyone knows Nicholas hates being cold. It’s good. A legitimate reason for only going out when he really has to.

Tonight Owen and Hyunwoong and Youngwoo tell that he really has to go out. That he’s been lame as fuck lately and all he does when he’s not at schedules is lock himself in the studio and mope around at home and write sad shit for no reason. That it’s Saturday night and he just needs to get real fucked up and he’ll be over whatever the fuck this is.

So he does; a Gangnam club with American rap and bottles of imported hard stuff and VIP seating for other assholes like him.

Jinyong doesn’t come because he never comes out anymore. He’s getting really serious about the whole not drinking thing. Nicholas thinks that it’s good that he didn’t come tonight and then he realizes that he’s still thinking about Jinyoung.

He forces himself to listen to whatever Owen’s talking about. It’s hard to hear over the bass rattling the drinks on the table but it’s about some girl and something Owen saw or did or wants to do or whatever and it’s gross.

It’s gross and Nicholas thinks about it being him. Him on his knees. Him with his mouth open. Him on his knees with his mouth open and a thin thumb pushing down on his wet bottom lip and, and, and. And. And Nicholas starts knocking back the shots and ordering more rounds for the table and drinking and drinking and drinking and when he wakes up the next morning he isn’t all that sure where he is.

He’s on a couch. A fridge hums away. It smells sort of like bleach and old carpet and days old takeout. It’s dead quiet.

Nicholas tries to sit up, his skull near splits in two. There’s a big heavy jacket tucked around him. Camouflage Bape with a fake fur-trimmed hood. He feels like he should know this jacket.

“Yo, Nick?” A door clicks open and a head peeks in and Nicholas realizes where he is. “Sweet, you’re up.”

“Hyung.” Nicholas nods at Jinyoung.

“Was kinda worried about you, you were pretty out of it when I got here…” Jinyoung heads for the fridge, moves cartons of food around with a frown, “Since when do you sleep it off in the studio?”

“Must’ve given the taxi the wrong address or something.” Nicholas licks his lips, a chunk of dry skin flakes off onto his tongue. “Since when do you come to the studio on the weekend?”

Jinyong finds a bottle of water behind a container of pork tangsuyuk cemented to the bottom of the fridge. 

“Here. You must be thirsty.” He passes it to Nicholas, sits straight across from him in secondhand armchair repurposed from Jinyong’s parents place. “I like coming in on the weekend… ‘s more quiet then.”

“Oh.”

Jinyong’s leaning forward, elbows resting on knees. Looking at Nicholas and messing with the piercing under his lip. Nicholas pulls the jacket tight around his shoulders.

“Hey, Nick… you doin’ alright?”

Nicholas turns the water around in his hands, picks at the label. His head thumps in time with his heart. “Like, besides the hangover, or…?”

“Yeah, like lately you seem a bit…” Jinyong pauses, Nicholas tugs the jacket right up under his nose. “Y’know, Bruce Lee said that like, we bring all our problems into existence, so, like, if we talk about them, we-”

The jacket smells like mid-range smokes and sprite and pizza crusts.

“Fuck, is this yours?” Nicholas tears the jacket off, holds it out at Jinyong.

“Yeah, when I came in you looked cold, so I-”

Nicholas shoves the jacket at him, Jinyong stares. “Take it. I don’t want it.”

“Uh, what?”

“You heard me, take it!”

Jinyong blinks. He curls his fingers into the fabric. “Nicky-”

“And don’t call me that!” Nicholas shouts. His voice cracks and it comes out as more of a screech.

“Jeez, Nick.” Jinyong stands up, stiff. The tendons in his fists bulge out against his jacket. “I think… think I’ll head home. See you later.”

The door clicks shut and the fridge hums and Nicholas throws his empty water bottle at the armchair. He misses because his hands are shaking. He blames it on the cold.

  
  
  


Bangbaedong is dark at night. The streets around the station are all lit up with cell phone stores and kimbap heavens and kalguksu places but after that the number of convenience stores and ahjumma-run snack shops drop off and then it’s just towering apartment blocks, stone villas, and the mountains looming black in the distance. 

Nicholas grips his padded cooler tighter and stuffs his free hand in his parka’s pocket. It’s cold enough he can see his breath, swirling up into the night sky under the dim streetlights. Sometimes he kind of regrets living away from the buzz of Itaewon or Hongdae, the status of Gangnam or the constant stream of human life in Guro. But tonight Bangbaedong is just right. Beyond the odd couple huddled together for warmth or a just-washed car passing by it’s just Nicholas and his thoughts and his big bag of food.

It’s good. He doesn’t know if he could do this if he wasn’t pretty much alone. It’s barely a plan. Could even be considered spontaneous. He’d rather go on Show Me the Money every year for the rest of his life than do this. His hands are trembling when he presses the buzzer at a clean concrete and glass villa and stares into the camera.

“Nick?” Jinyong’s voice is robotic through the speaker. “Better come up, I guess.”

His hands are still moving on their own when he stands in the doorway of Jinyong’s apartment.

“I, uh, I brought chicken.” He holds up the cooler as if it explains why he’s shown up at Jinyong’s in the middle of the night without even texting first.

Jinyong smiles. “Well, whatcha standing there for?”

They eat cross-legged on the floor, cardboard boxes of fried chicken between them and soaking up the heat from the ondol. Jinyong’s got American rap playing and his rice cooker clicks every few minutes and his phone vibrates sometimes but he ignores it.

“This is really good.” Jinyong says, balancing a fried wing between thumb and forefinger.

“‘S just Kyochon.” 

“Still.” He rips a big chunk of crispy coating off a piece while Nicholas tries to stab open a container of pickled radish with a chopstick.

He tries too hard and some of the juice dribbles out onto the floor.

“‘M sorry.” 

“No problem.” Jinyong laughs, wiping it up with toilet paper.

“No, like. I’m sorry.” Nicholas sits up, stops messing with the radishes to look at Jinyong. “Sorry for being such a douche.”

Jinyong shakes his head, mouth full of chicken. “Nah, don’t be. I get it. Like, shit gets stressful. Even you have gotta snap once in a while.”

“It’s not that, it’s…” Nicholas wishes he could disappear in the folds of his hoodie. He picks at the skin on a thigh piece. “...I’ve been a real fuckin’ pussy this year.”

Jinyong sets his chicken down. “Why would you think that?”

Nicholas stops, tugs at his hair without thinking. Gets chicken grease in his grey bangs. He thinks he really should have thought this through more.

Jinyong gives him a weird look. He gets up, flicks through a stack of jewel cases, pops a disc in an old CD player he still has.

Nicholas recognizes the start of _Bring Da Ruckus_ in the first two beats.

“It’s this!” He blurts while Jinyong makes himself comfortable across from him again. “Fuck, this is exactly it!”

Jinyong’s face is blank. Nicholas shoves a hand through his hair and half of it sticks back while the other half falls forward. The piece of chicken he’s been playing with is plucked down to the bone. 

“Fuck it, Hyung. I’m just gonna say it ‘cause I feel like, like… like I’ve been losing my fuckin’ mind! ‘Member how you were talking about us listening to this album at my mom’s at Chuseok all that time ago?”

“Yeah…?”

Jinyong’s eyes are wide and he doesn’t have a hat on or half his piercings in. He’s in socks and sweatpants and his hair looks dark and soft and he taps his fingers along to the Wu-Tang. He looks almost just like he did all those years ago.

“And we rapped all of _C.R.E.A.M._ together and you said it was the coolest shit you’d ever heard? Fuck, Hyung…” Nicholas’s voice is a rasping whisper. He’s cold sweating under his sweatshirt. “Wanted to kiss you then so bad.”

“Yeah. Same.”

Raekwon’s rapping about the good ol’ days through the speakers.

Nicholas snaps his chicken bone in half.

“What?” 

Jinyong takes a long swig of sprite. “Same. Wanted to kiss you then too.”

It’s Ol’ Dirty Bastard now, spouting about his flow.

Nicholas is frozen. Stuck. His body does nothing, sweat is shining on his forehead and his lips move on their own. “Why… why didn’t you tell me?”

Jinyong shrugs, grabs a drumstick. “Dunno. Same reason you never told me, probably.”

Nicholas’s armpits are soaked.

“Thought it wasn’t much of a good idea? Even I could tell this wasn’t really part of your plan.” Jinyong continues, pausing only to rip off a lump of chicken, “I figured maybe now, that things were finally starting to go good for us, maybe the timing was right? Was trying to tell you, thought maybe we’d finally get our shit together but... guess I didn’t know how to tell you right. Or maybe it wasn’t the right time after all.”

Boom. Bap. Boom boom. Bap. Guitar chunking in chords on the offbeats.

It’s the song. The song. Cash rules everything around me, get the money. Nicholas’s palms are sweaty. 

“Don’t really feel like I’ve got my shit together, but...” Nicholas can’t help mouthing along to the first line. I grew up on the crime side, the New York Times side. He wipes his hands on his jeans. Jinyong stops chewing. “...the timing does kinda seem right.”

Jinyong swallows. His mouth tugs up, that close-lipped grin he gives for the best fancams. He reaches forward, inch by inch, and his fingers brush Nicholas’s and then he’s grabbing, he’s clasping, he’s got their fingers locked together. They fit kind of like were always supposed to be there and they’re warm and calloused and sort of sweaty too. Nicholas holds Jinyong’s hand like he’s scared Jinyong’s going to change his mind and he’s sure the tips of his ears are burning red.

They sit like that through Raekwon’s verse and a chorus. Nicholas stares at their hands together, Jinyong’s rings bright against their skin. Dollar dollar bill, y’all.

“Nick. Choi Nicholas Seokbae.” Jinyong’s eyes are nice this close up. They sparkle just like the studs above his cheekbone. “If you don’t kiss me before the end of this song, I’m gonna have to kiss you first.”

Inspectah Deck’s verse starts. Fuck it. Nicholas’s verse starts.

He leans over the chicken and touches his lips to Jinyong’s. Soft, just enough to taste. Nicotine, sprite, chicken. Just what he wanted.

Jinyong kisses him back. Once gentle, then more. Then again, again. Kisses him hot. Kisses him slick. Kisses him and cradles his jaw, tilts his head, opens his mouth with a swipe of his tongue, swaps spit with him nice and slow. Kisses him right through the end of Inspectah Deck’s lines and a chorus and through to the bridge. The last notes are fading when they pull back, noses rubbing and foreheads pressed together. Nicholas breathes hard, through his mouth.

“Holy shit, Nick.” Jinyong whispers against his lips, all hot breath and shining teeth. Nicholas thinks his lips crack from how big he’s grinning. 

“Actually, I kinda like Nicky.”

“Yeah?” Jinyong laughs, scrunching his fingers into Nicholas’s shirt to keep him close. Nicholas laughs too. Pretty sure he hasn’t laughed this hard in months. “Well, _Nicky_ , that hoodie looks kinda heavy. You gonna let me take it off you?”

Nicholas’s tongue darts out, licks Jinyong’s spit off his bottom lip real slow.

“Gonna let you do a lot more than that.”

“Fuck.” Jinyong shudders. “Cool.”

Nicholas’s hoodie comes off. His hair is still stuck half up, half down. Jinyong shoves all the boxes of chicken out of the way and they kiss right there on the floor. He guides Nicholas down, on his back, and Nicholas pulls him up onto his lap. The floor is so warm and Jinyong’s mouth is so warm and his hands are leaving a burning trail of heat where they slide under Nicholas’s t-shirt and up his stomach. Jinyong kisses him right where his eyebrow piercings should be and Nicholas kisses him right on the ink on his neck. Jinyong threads his hands through Nicholas’s hair and slides their tongues together and groans out Nicholas’s name and for once Nicholas thinks it’s pretty fucking sweet being Nicholas. On the CD player Method Man is going on about his sick rhymes but Nicholas doesn’t hear. The things Jinyong’s doing with his lips are way sicker.

  
  
  


The year ends in Bangbaedong.

The sun is just rising, cold winter light splitting the clouds over the far off mountains and filtering through Nicholas’s half-pulled blinds. 

Nicholas is in his bathroom. Sweatpants, shower-wet hair, squinting in the mirror even with his glasses on as he tries to put in his piercings.

“Hey, Nick. Y’have a good sleep?”

Nicholas nods at Jinyong’s reflection. Plaid boxers, puffy eyes, extra large Young Thug shirt.

“You should know, you were there.”

“True.” Jinyong pads up behind him, wraps skinny arms around Nicholas’s bare waist, presses his forehead to the back of his neck. “I slept really good.”

“Hyung,” Nicholas complains, fumbling with an earring, “You’re gonna make me stab my eye out.”

“Hmm.”

Jinyong cuddles up closer, rubs his nose in Nicholas’s damp hair. “Never told you that I liked what you did to your hair. This grey-blue thing… it’s nice.”

“Thought it was time for a change, ‘s’all.”

Jinyong rests his chin on Nicholas’s shoulder, lips to his ear. His voice is soft and warm and it tickles against Nicholas’s skin. 

“‘M glad you did. Someone very important once said that we change for real when we feel like we really should.” 

The last earring slides in easy. Nicholas spins around in Jinyong’s arms so they’re face to face, forehead to forehead, glasses hanging low on his nose.

“Yeah? And who said that?”

“You. A year ago. ‘Member?”

The van in Yeongdeungpo. Early morning sunrise over old produce stores and new shopping complexes. 

“Oh. No shit?”

Jinyong laughs. He’s got stubble and morning breath. Nicholas reaches out and rubs his thumb over the hair on Jinyong’s upper lip.

“Think I ‘member you sayin’ it was gonna be our year, Hyung.”

Jinyong lets go of Nicholas’s waist for just a second. Slides the glasses down off his nose, places them next to the sink.

He hooks his hands together low on Nicholas’s back and tugs him close and kisses him. Real slow and sexy and happy and with tongue, with a smile, with what feels like they’ve been doing this forever. Nicholas laughs and cups Jinyong’s face in his hands and kisses back, on lips and piercings and tattoos, wet and hot and easy and happy.

Nicholas is Nicholas and Jinyong is Jinyong and an apartment in Bangbaedong is nicer than L.A. or Gangnam or New York or anywhere else in the world.

Jinyong grins into Nicholas’s mouth. 

“Pretty sure it has been, Nicky.”

Nicholas grins right back.

END


End file.
